20 October 2020
During the coronavirus pandemic, the Continuous Mortality Investigation (CMI) is publishing frequent UK mortality analysis through its mortality monitor. The latest update covers weeks 40 and 41 of 2020 (26 September to 9 October) based on provisional England & Wales deaths data published by the Office for National Statistics (ONS) on 20 October 2020.
The key points of this update are:
- The number of deaths with COVID-19 mentioned on the death certificate has increased from under 100 in each of weeks 36 and 37, to 438 in week 41.
- Despite this, all-cause mortality rates remain similar to the corresponding period in 2019.
- Considering weeks 40 and 41 together, there were 0.8% less deaths registered in England & Wales than if death rates had been the same as for the corresponding weeks of 2019. In the previous fortnight, weeks 38 and 39, deaths were 0.4% lower than expected.
- There have been around 60,500 more deaths in the UK from the start of the pandemic to 9 October 2020 than if mortality rates were similar to those experienced in 2019. This is a decrease of around 4,100 from the peak at 12 June 2020.
Cobus Daneel, Chair of the CMI Mortality Projections Committee said: “Despite the recent increase in COVID-19 deaths, overall mortality in recent weeks has remained at a similar level to 2019.”
“Excess” deaths are the difference between actual deaths in 2020, and those that we would expect if mortality rates had been the same as in 2019.
The cumulative number of excess deaths as at 9 October is lower than the number as at 12 June because there were fewer deaths than expected during most summer weeks; i.e. excess deaths were negative in those weeks.
The CMI intends to publish its next mortality monitor for weeks 42 and 43 on 3 November 2020.
All mortality monitor weekly updates are publicly available on the mortality monitor page.